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Chinese New Year recipe: Sebak kristang by Lanterne Rooms, Canberra

Daniel Mark

Lanterne Rooms at Campbell are celebrating the Chinese new year. Sous chef Dean Han, left, and head chef Daniel Mark.
Lanterne Rooms at Campbell are celebrating the Chinese new year. Sous chef Dean Han, left, and head chef Daniel Mark.Jamila Toderas

Malaysia is a multi-cultural country, full of diversity and ethnicity. At the heart of every Malaysian is food, be it a 3am early supper after a football game or a home cooked dish lovingly made by a mother for her family. My New Year dinners were filled with laughter, joy, love and of course, lots of food.

The standout dish was the "sebak kristang" which is braised pork in soy-galangal sauce and is made fragrant with the use of sweet spices like cinnamon, cloves and star anise, and served on a green shredded salad with a mouth-tingling spicy homemade chilli sauce.

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Chilli sauce

5 fresh red long chillies
5 dried red chillies
4 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon castor sugar
½ teaspoon sea salt
2 tbsp lemon juice

Blend the ingredients and put on high heat to boil. Once boil, cool in fridge.

Sebak kristang - a spicy, sweet, and hot pork belly dish.
Sebak kristang - a spicy, sweet, and hot pork belly dish.Jamila Toderas

Pork belly

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600g pork belly
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
3 tbsp dark caramel sauce
1 tablespoon galangal, sliced
Half red onion, quartered
6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 cinnamon stick (3cm in length)
1 star anise
2 cloves
2 tablespoon rock sugar
300ml water

Salad

4 cos lettuce leaves, cut into half
100g fried silken tofu, cut into 2 cm dice
1 tomato, quartered
1 telegraph cucumber, deseeded and cut into 2mm thick slices
2 Dutch carrot cut into 2mm thick slices

Marinate the pork belly in the light and dark sauces for 30 minutes. Place meat in a deep pot together with galangal, onion, garlic, cinnamon, star anise and cloves. Heat for 4 mins, then pour in enough water to cover the meat. Bring to boil on high heat, add sugar, then cover the pot and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes. When meat is tender, remove and let it cool at room temperature.

Reduce sauce by half on low heat. Once the meat is cool, cut into bite sized pieces and place meat in a mixing bowl together the salad ingredients. Add 4 tablespoons of the reduced sauce. Add 2 tablespoon of the chilli sauce. For a bit more of a kick, add more chilli sauce. Toss till meat and salad are evenly coated with soy sauce and chilli sauce. Serve with steamed rice.

Serves 4

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